TY  - THES
AU  - De Vita, Ruggero
Y2  - 2019/09/14
Y1  - 2019
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/11343/227633
AB  - Globular clusters (GCs), compact stellar systems orbiting in and around galaxies,
are natural laboratories to study a diverse range of astrophysical processes. The
current stellar population of the oldest GCs in our Galaxy is the manifestation of
more than 12 billion years of combined stellar, dynamical and hydrodynamical
evolution, whose interplay is responsible for enhanced presence of star exotica
such as millisecond pulsars, blue stragglers and black hole (BH) binaries.
GCs have also been indicated as possible formation sites of intermediate-mass
black holes (IMBHs), which might represent the missing link between the wellknown
populations of stellar BHs (few tens times the Sun’s mass) and supermassive
BHs (more than a million times the Sun’s mass). Despite recent efforts,
a clear evidence of their existence is still missing, therefore identifying multiple
signatures of their presence has become critical.

In the first part of this thesis, we address two main issues that may affect
a possible IMBH detection. The first issue is represented by the systematic uncertainties
in classical observational techniques (e.g., integrated-light IFU spectroscopy).
In particular, we use state-of-the-art numerical simulations to produce
realistic mock observations considering different setups in order to assess under
which conditions the presence of an IMBH can be successfully recovered. The
second issue is related to the IMBH wandering off-center, which is fundamental
to take into account, especially when the presence of IMBHs is constrained
through dynamical modeling of stellar kinematics. Guided by the simulation results,
we developed a basic yet accurate model that can be used to estimate the
average IMBH radial displacement in terms of structural quantities, which can be
constrained by the observations.

In the second part of the thesis, we present a new set of cutting-edge direct Nbody
simulations, which have been specifically designed to study the dynamical
influence of BHs on the long-term evolution of GCs. We combined our numerical
simulations with analysis techniques from high-resolution observations of GCs
with the aim of identifying key indicators that correlate with the black hole mass
fraction. Our results offer novel approaches to indirectly characterise black hole
populations in star clusters, which in turn can constrain theories of globular cluster
formation and estimates of dynamically-induced gravitational wave merging
rates.
KW  - black holes
KW  - kinematics and dynamics
KW  - stars
KW  - galaxies
KW  - globular clusters
KW  - numerical simulations
T1  - Dynamical fingerprints of black holes in globular clusters
L1  - /bitstream/handle/11343/227633/182633c3-e723-e911-949b-0050568d7800_thesis_rdv.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
ER  -